Temperament and childhood trauma in an indigenous classroom setting
After taking the Attachment Vitamins: Interactive Course on Early Childhood Attachment, Stress, and Trauma, I learned about a number of concepts that were novel to me as well as some that I gained additional knowledge on. In terms of the Heal Historical Trauma initiative, I find it helpful to learn about temperament and the informative studies on different types of temperament. In my opinion, this is an aspect that is often overlooked, yet important to know since not every child will require the same approach in their raising. In fact, it can be harmful to impose the same standards on every child. Since our project focuses on reintroducing education to the Indigenous Navajo children and adolescents, knowing about different temperaments will be important to create a flourishing educational setting.
What stood out to me in the modules that taught about the different temperaments and how to correctly approach them, was that we as a society are not educated on these aspects that are crucial for a successful child’s upbringing. Even with the best of intentions, this lack of education prevents from being attuned to the child’s true needs. For example, with temperamentally flexible children it may seem that they do not need as much attention from their caregivers, yet in reality their needs are just as significant — their cues and pointing out to those needs are simply more subtle. Same with temperamentally fearful children — just because they are slow to warm up to a new activity or environment doesn’t mean they will engage any less, they simply take their time. Not knowing about these kind of temperamental differences, even with the best of intentions with healthy caregivers, these children might either receive less care than they need or be pushed into situations that they need more time with. I believe this knowledge will be beneficial for designing a solution to bring Navajo children and adolescents into an educational setting, and be attuned to their needs for the best outcome — perhaps doing initial testing on temperament could prepare the educators to approach the children in their care on a more individualized level, which would be helpful as we aim to reintroduce education in these communities. If the Navajo parents were open to it, this knowledge could also serve to improve the quality of parent-child relationships.
Another important aspect that stood out to me from the training, that would also relate to the indigenous Navajo children in an educational setting, was the need to consider the question: “What has this child been through?”. According to Dr. Chandra Gash Ippin, when working with children in groups, it is unknown what past these children have endured, yet a huge percentage of the classroom will have experienced trauma, either on a community or familial level. In settings where 75% of children or more have experienced a traumatic event, it might be helpful to consider: “What are some of the common traumas?”. Then it would be the educator’s job to put themselves in these children’s shoes, what it might have been like for them and what triggers might be coming up. In these instances, the ways caregivers/educators communicate with these children is important. For example, reacting with anger might be triggering for these children and might set them off. Here, the sense of safety is important, and explaining in words such as: “I am angry right now” might be helpful to create the transparency in the adult-child bond and unveils what is truly behind a caregiver’s emotional reaction. And if this is where a past traumatic experience resides, showing these children new safe ways of dealing with things can be reparative. For indigenous children and their families who have experienced trauma in the past, this kind of emotional education and effective communication practices could be helpful if they were open to them, and possibly provided to them by social workers, educators or other professionals.
It was interesting for me to learn that parents too can get triggered and experience toxic stress in relationships with their children, often as a reminder to their own trauma. It would be helpful to learn about the historical and intergenerational trauma that the Navajo community has endured, and as aforementioned, emotional difficulties and challenging behavior become understandable when learning what adverse and traumatic experiences lay behind them. Since research shows that stress impacts executive functioning and learning abilities, creating emotionally safe bonds and environments would be a necessary basis for successful educational settings in the indigenous context and beyond.
